Book Review
Oseloka Obaze*
Saturday 1 December 2007
Luke Nnaemeka Aneke
The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War
(ISBN: 1-890430-498 Triumph Publishing, New York, NY 10469, 2007, pp. 756; Price US$29.95)
Available much at: www.nigeriabiafrawar.com
Eggheads have the uncanny ability and mischievous tendency to intimidate. They do it in several ways; overwhelm by volume, obfuscation and sheer inundation with copious literary and information materiel that renders the reader numb, well before he or she picks up the courage to pick up a book with heft. Some also believe, quite fallaciously, that the bigger a book, the bigger and likelihood of the reading public’s consideration of its value. Dr. Luke Nnaemeka Aneke does not fail in this regard.
When an old schoolmate accosted me recently at a public function and handed me a copy of Aneke’s book, The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War, with the near impudent demand, “Give us a review”; I almost walked away from my table without picking up the book. But the title was historical and, therefore, luring. I may have also acceded to the request for more personal reasons. First, those who do not read tend to have no respect for what it takes to write a book. And those who review books, muster immense temerity, to comment and even thrash what others have written. But a good book that is not reviewed, remains just another book. Reviews are the live tonics of books; they can make or break a book, regardless of the esteem of the author.
Besides novels, I have always been dubious about academic and serious topic books that have no index. That singular act speaks to two points. You are either being compelled to read the book to find out if you got honorable mention, or that the book is so loaded with facts, that it renders an annex superfluous. The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War is a textbook example of the case where the vehemence and denseness of information trumps the value of indexing. Since this book is really an academic reference book, it demands by that fact alone, that any review of it, must treat it in the same vein.
Aneke has delivered a compelling work, not in its form or substance, but in its extensively providing raw materials and reference for anyone who seeks to write about the Nigeria-Biafra civil war, without having to go through the tedium and horrors of rigorous research. I suppose it took Aneke awesome and mind-numbing research to unearth the various news and information sources on Biafra.
Though The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War has 38 chapters, it is in the true sense, purely a book without chapters. Rather, all its 756 real pages are chronological and significant developments relative to Nigerian politics and the result that is the Biafran war. The story of Biafra is an unabridged continuum and this work reflects that reality, most unapologetically.
The beauty and value of the book, is that it is not subjective and therefore lacks an author’s bias, if indeed any exist. Quite contrary to the norm, The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War is a compendium of alternative and independent sources, whose views and the veracity of their commentaries must stand on their respective niches. Aneke had therefore, done the gravediggers or miners’ job of unearthing the unvarnished facts and laying them bare of the pages of his book. It is in this context that his subtitle, “the untold story” finds its merit. How else and where else and in what form would one find one singular source that offers views that are truly global? Aneke having scooped long forgotten or suppressed materials from Associated Press and New York Times to Newsweek should have called this work, “All you wanted to know about Biafra, but was afraid to search for.”
The facts in this book are compelling. However, they would be skeletal stand-alones, without Aneke’s introduction and two epilogues, which intrinsically are the flourishes, which give the compendium’s sublime, ridiculous, and generic facts their worthy fillip. This book is essentially revealing in one aspect, but only so to the most discerning. The news on Biafra from the various Western sources and perspective amounts to no more than snippets. There are hardly any full-length feature stories on the war and its consequences. What this suggests, is that the Biafran war was to the West, quite peripheral and their interest and attention span to it, perfunctory, if not unsympathetic.
Some of the wire reports in this book are anecdotal as they are revealing. Take for instance The New York Times unmasking of Col. Joe “Hanibal” Achuzia’s proclivities:
Yes, I have shot at several [Biafran soldiers] on the spot. No one can stand up to bullets flying at him on the basis of good intensions alone. There must be military discipline. If a man must be killed so that others will fight, we have to do it; look at what is at stake. If they capture Biafra, all Biafran senior officers would be given summary court martial and shot. They would round up all the leading citizens and shoot them. As for the common people. Look at the massacres of Easterners in northern Nigeria in 1966. (p.222)
Biafrans knew much about the sadistic and, to some, legendary Col. Achuzia, but not the reasons why he did what he did – self-preservation!
On page 449, The New York Times in its March 27 1969 piece, titled “Harold Wilson Visits Nigeria” recalls the utmost of ironies about Gen. Gowon’s likening of Biafra secessionist effort to the armed struggle in Rhodesia (later Zimbabwe). ‘He touched a tender British nerve in the first paragraph of his unusually political welcoming speech, remarking that Nigeria was ‘in the throes of an internal rebellion similar in nature to that of Rhodesia, which I understand your Government is equally determined to crush’. In essence, Nigeria, which later single-handedly forced Britain to acquiesce to the independence of Zimbabwe, had in its enlightened self-interest or an unguarded moment, denounced Zimbabwe’s armed struggled as being merely a secessionist attempt like Biafra.
This book has many more tidbits and facts. Many key players in the Nigerian-Biafran war risk finding out things said about them in the media that are either unflattering or uplifting. Then, there are causes worth pondering. Why did Dr. Martin Luther King, cancel his peace mission to Nigeria in April 1968. Was his commitment to justice and peace in the US far more important to justice and peace elsewhere?
Indeed, a treasure trove of facts are embedded everywhere in-between the introductory lines; ‘Biafra happened well over 30 years ago. But as we speak, it is still a ‘Vietnam’ in the hearts and minds of many Nigerians,” and “The End,” on page 745, wherein it is said, ‘This is the end of the Nigerian civil war….the actual end remains debatable. While some believe it ended with Biafra’s surrender in 1970, others believe it ended with Ojukwu’s return from Ivory Coast in 1982, while yet some others believe it is still in progress. The true end, ... is beyond the scope of this book.”
Dr. Aneke has put together in a very painstaking manner, a job that should be satisfying to him and everyone who comes across it. His effort will thrill historians, scholars and pundits to no end. At first sight, the temptation is utterly pervasive to brush aside this work, as merely being a compilations of facts; but then, these are raw and sometimes naked and ugly facts that speak for themselves. Moreover, to his credit, and as Gen. Philip Efiong, observed in his foreword to the book, ‘the presentation in this book in the form of a diary of event paints a historical picture that is free of rancor and the play of personal emotion.’ That is, undoubtedly, the strongest suit of The Untold Story of the Nigeria-Biafra War. It will be a tough act to follow. For that alone, Dr. Aneke should rest easy. He has done his historical bit.
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Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005, he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was second among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. His novel, “Happy Eulogy” will be published in 2007.
He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.
© Copyright 1 December 2007.